4 ms·

VR is tech in search of a problem. The iPod and iPhone had clear applications and user frustration being solved. I’m still unconvinced VR will have mass market

VR is tech in search of a problem. The iPod and iPhone had clear applications and user frustration being solved. I’m still unconvinced VR will have mass market appeal.

hn72774 2y ago
Racing games seem to be a niche that makes sense. The tech will keep shrinking and the cost will come down. We are still in the early adopter phase.
threeseed 2y ago
Not sure if you've experienced the Vision Pro demo. But everyone that I know who has came away fully understanding what Apple is trying to do. Virtual experiences e.g. being front row at a sports game or concert, watching movies with friends in a theatre, climbing Mount Everest etc. And working with multiple screens. If it can just do those two things it will be another iPad sized business which is still worth tens of billions to Apple.
- crooked-v 2y ago
  To me, it seems obvious that they're trying to line things up now for when the hardware is developed enough in the future to actually be comfortable. In other words, they're targeting the tablet/phone-as-sunglasses market that doesn't exist yet, so that when it does arrive they're already the best offering by miles.
crooked-v 2y ago
The Apple Vision target isn't VR, it's AR (but can also coincidentally do VR, because the necessary hardware for AR enables that). That may sound pedantic, but actually it's a pretty huge difference. They don't want to sell a device primarily for closed-off experiences; they want to sell an iPad on your face that you can also, if you want, use for movies and whatever.
- hn_throwaway_99 2y ago
  > they want to sell an iPad on your face that you can also, if you want, use for movies and whatever. Why would anyone think your average person wants an iPad on your face?
  - threeseed 2y ago
    Because it offers experiences you can't get otherwise e.g. https://www.lapz.io https://www.lapz.io
  - globular-toast 2y ago
    Why would the average person want to hold a heavy iPad in their hands if they don't have to?
    - consteval 2y ago
      Because interacting with an ipad is significantly easier than interacting in VR. And then interacting with a PC is even easier than that. Imagine a typical use case for a computer. Writing an essay, coding, doing CAD work, using Excel, replying to emails, ordering products. Here's how much I'd want to do those per device: 1. TV - fuck no 2. Phone - prefer not to, but replying to an email isn't the worse thing ever 3. iPad - pretty good, sure 3. Desktop PC - by far fastest, most dense, and most convenient experience 4. VR - If it even can be done, I know it will be infuriating.
- ddingus 2y ago
  Huge difference! I give VR essentially zero chance outside of a few niches, like adult entertainment, virtual tours and the like. The harsh divide between the world the body inhabits and what is presented comes with endless problems. It is cool though. No joke. AR, has a chance. It does not impose that hard divide and it can augment the world without adding latency to it.
zmmmmm 2y ago
Like a fish in water, you just don't know the problems you have, because you never considered it could be otherwise. One problem you have, is that it costs hundreds to thousands of dollars to buy a large display and then they are so huge and heavy they are effectively geolocked to where every you put them, forcing you to buy many of them and just go without in many places you would otherwise use them. Another problem you have is you are constantly asked to travel places to be physically present with people because apparently it makes you collaborate with them better. But because there's no other choice you just do it... it's not a problem to be solved, it's just a fact of life. Obviously I'm making assumptions here, but these are the types of "problems" VR solves. By and large people don't acknowledge them because it takes too much imagination to think it could ever be different. I have full confidence that you'll dismiss all these problems right now in your reply - as much confidence as I have that when the tech reaches the right point that it truly solves them in a convenient and comfortable way, you'll embrace it and declare they were obvious all along.
- globular-toast 2y ago
  There's more: you have to hold your phone/tablet or you have to sit/stand at a desk which can hold the screen, keyboard etc for you. The broader problem here is the somewhat caveman style interaction we have to do with computers/devices, ie. go right up and touch them and be near them. This is quite often bad for our health (see problems with sitting, RSI etc) and means they use up valuable space in our homes.
  - ddingus 2y ago
    Wait a minute... Caveman like? That seems way over the top. Essentially making the computing experience part of us is super compelling. I get that. But it all remains in very early, highly speculative days. As for valuable space, whose systems do you really trust? The ones running in my home are known and not a worry, or untrusted and managed appropriately. For it to work like you hint at, we need either: Massive, central systems that people essentially rent and are forced to trust , or Small ones so power efficient they can be implanted and perform in meaningful ways using minimal hardware, ideally communicating along internal channels somehow. Even with those, sharing is a big deal, potentially exposing a now very dangerous and highly personal resource to others. Meanwhile, the cavemen sent people to the moon on far less overall computing than we often carry in our pockets these days.
Almondsetat 2y ago
So if something doesn't have mass market application it's a solution in search of a problem? Because this is what your post implies
sureIy 2y ago
Size, battery and price are huge problems. No one wants to be seen in public with that thing, only use it for 2 hours and pay 3 months worth of salary for it. Show me something on my eye glasses, let me charge them overnight, charge me $700 and you bet I'll be using them daily. Just look at the unlikely success of the Apple Watch. Nobody really needs it but it's practical, it replaces a piece of wear that people already used, and it does not cost a fortune. Tech just is not there yet for glasses.
mppm 2y ago
VR, if done right, has many fairly obvious use cases. In my opinion it only seems so useless because of botched market targeting. It would have been better to follow the natural technical learning curve from high-paying early adopters to premium entertainment and office gear to mass market -- once the tech has matured and prices have come way down. But Meta &co have thought "wow, this is going to be big" and "let's try to grab as much market share as possible" and decided to go straight to mass market. And yeah, now we have cheap headsets with terrible resolution that are only useful for consuming cheap VR entertainment and this Metaverse thing that nobody actually wants.
kergonath 2y ago
Substitute Tablet for VR and iPad for Vision Pro and this exact argument was made back then (and is still believed by many who expect the iPad to fail anytime now). Or the Apple TV. Or the iPod. Or the Watch. And yet, here we are. Nobody can say for sure how long the Vision Pro will exist, or whether it will be eventually turned into something completely different. Saying with any certainty that it is useless is just as short sighted as predicting a runaway success.

VR is tech in search of a problem. The iPod and iPhone had clear applications and user frustration being solved. I’m still unconvinced VR will have mass market appeal.

hn72774 2y ago

Racing games seem to be a niche that makes sense. The tech will keep shrinking and the cost will come down. We are still in the early adopter phase.

threeseed 2y ago

Not sure if you've experienced the Vision Pro demo. But everyone that I know who has came away fully understanding what Apple is trying to do. Virtual experiences e.g. being front row at a sports game or concert, watching movies with friends in a theatre, climbing Mount Everest etc. And working with multiple screens. If it can just do those two things it will be another iPad sized business which is still worth tens of billions to Apple.

crooked-v 2y ago
To me, it seems obvious that they're trying to line things up now for when the hardware is developed enough in the future to actually be comfortable. In other words, they're targeting the tablet/phone-as-sunglasses market that doesn't exist yet, so that when it does arrive they're already the best offering by miles.

crooked-v 2y ago

The Apple Vision target isn't VR, it's AR (but can also coincidentally do VR, because the necessary hardware for AR enables that). That may sound pedantic, but actually it's a pretty huge difference. They don't want to sell a device primarily for closed-off experiences; they want to sell an iPad on your face that you can also, if you want, use for movies and whatever.

hn_throwaway_99 2y ago
> they want to sell an iPad on your face that you can also, if you want, use for movies and whatever. Why would anyone think your average person wants an iPad on your face?
- threeseed 2y ago
  Because it offers experiences you can't get otherwise e.g. https://www.lapz.io https://www.lapz.io
- globular-toast 2y ago
  Why would the average person want to hold a heavy iPad in their hands if they don't have to?
  - consteval 2y ago
    Because interacting with an ipad is significantly easier than interacting in VR. And then interacting with a PC is even easier than that. Imagine a typical use case for a computer. Writing an essay, coding, doing CAD work, using Excel, replying to emails, ordering products. Here's how much I'd want to do those per device: 1. TV - fuck no 2. Phone - prefer not to, but replying to an email isn't the worse thing ever 3. iPad - pretty good, sure 3. Desktop PC - by far fastest, most dense, and most convenient experience 4. VR - If it even can be done, I know it will be infuriating.
ddingus 2y ago
Huge difference! I give VR essentially zero chance outside of a few niches, like adult entertainment, virtual tours and the like. The harsh divide between the world the body inhabits and what is presented comes with endless problems. It is cool though. No joke. AR, has a chance. It does not impose that hard divide and it can augment the world without adding latency to it.

zmmmmm 2y ago

Like a fish in water, you just don't know the problems you have, because you never considered it could be otherwise. One problem you have, is that it costs hundreds to thousands of dollars to buy a large display and then they are so huge and heavy they are effectively geolocked to where every you put them, forcing you to buy many of them and just go without in many places you would otherwise use them. Another problem you have is you are constantly asked to travel places to be physically present with people because apparently it makes you collaborate with them better. But because there's no other choice you just do it... it's not a problem to be solved, it's just a fact of life. Obviously I'm making assumptions here, but these are the types of "problems" VR solves. By and large people don't acknowledge them because it takes too much imagination to think it could ever be different. I have full confidence that you'll dismiss all these problems right now in your reply - as much confidence as I have that when the tech reaches the right point that it truly solves them in a convenient and comfortable way, you'll embrace it and declare they were obvious all along.

globular-toast 2y ago
There's more: you have to hold your phone/tablet or you have to sit/stand at a desk which can hold the screen, keyboard etc for you. The broader problem here is the somewhat caveman style interaction we have to do with computers/devices, ie. go right up and touch them and be near them. This is quite often bad for our health (see problems with sitting, RSI etc) and means they use up valuable space in our homes.
- ddingus 2y ago
  Wait a minute... Caveman like? That seems way over the top. Essentially making the computing experience part of us is super compelling. I get that. But it all remains in very early, highly speculative days. As for valuable space, whose systems do you really trust? The ones running in my home are known and not a worry, or untrusted and managed appropriately. For it to work like you hint at, we need either: Massive, central systems that people essentially rent and are forced to trust , or Small ones so power efficient they can be implanted and perform in meaningful ways using minimal hardware, ideally communicating along internal channels somehow. Even with those, sharing is a big deal, potentially exposing a now very dangerous and highly personal resource to others. Meanwhile, the cavemen sent people to the moon on far less overall computing than we often carry in our pockets these days.

Almondsetat 2y ago

So if something doesn't have mass market application it's a solution in search of a problem? Because this is what your post implies

sureIy 2y ago

Size, battery and price are huge problems. No one wants to be seen in public with that thing, only use it for 2 hours and pay 3 months worth of salary for it. Show me something on my eye glasses, let me charge them overnight, charge me $700 and you bet I'll be using them daily. Just look at the unlikely success of the Apple Watch. Nobody really needs it but it's practical, it replaces a piece of wear that people already used, and it does not cost a fortune. Tech just is not there yet for glasses.

mppm 2y ago

VR, if done right, has many fairly obvious use cases. In my opinion it only seems so useless because of botched market targeting. It would have been better to follow the natural technical learning curve from high-paying early adopters to premium entertainment and office gear to mass market -- once the tech has matured and prices have come way down. But Meta &co have thought "wow, this is going to be big" and "let's try to grab as much market share as possible" and decided to go straight to mass market. And yeah, now we have cheap headsets with terrible resolution that are only useful for consuming cheap VR entertainment and this Metaverse thing that nobody actually wants.

kergonath 2y ago

Substitute Tablet for VR and iPad for Vision Pro and this exact argument was made back then (and is still believed by many who expect the iPad to fail anytime now). Or the Apple TV. Or the iPod. Or the Watch. And yet, here we are. Nobody can say for sure how long the Vision Pro will exist, or whether it will be eventually turned into something completely different. Saying with any certainty that it is useless is just as short sighted as predicting a runaway success.